Flamingo by Rachel Elliott

0:05 Hello. You're back in book lounge with Gloucester book club and I'm Christina Young. And in tonight's episode, we're going to be talking about a book. We read recently with Gloucester book club and it's called Flamingo by Rachel Elliot, and it was longlisted for the women's prize for fiction in 2022. And tonight on the couch, I'm joined By Zoe and James. I hope you enjoy.

0:45 In the garden, There Were Three, Flamingos not real, flamingos, but real emblems, real gateways to a time when life was impossibly good, they were mascots symbols of Hope. Something for a boy to confide in First there were the flamingos and then there were two families, Sherry and Leslie, and their daughters Ray, and Pauline and Eve, and her son, Daniel Sherry loves her husband Leslie. She also loves Eve. It couldn't have been a happier summer, but then Eve left and everything went gray. Now, Daniel is all grown up and broken, and when he turns up at share, Ares door.

1:33 It's almost as if they've all come home again, but there's still one missing. Where is Eve and what exactly is her story? Flamingo is a novel about the power of love, welcome and acceptance. It's a celebration of kindness of tenderness, set in 2018 and the 80s. It's a song for the broken-hearted and the Big Hearted and is 0. Ultimately a novel grown from gratitude and a book full of wild hope.

2:14 Just to forewarn you before you dive into our discussion, then maybe 1 or 2 spoilers. Well it's lovely to have you back so early and James on the book, lounge couch. Yet again this evening we're here to talk about Flamingo. So this is a book that we read really recently with our book club, so it should be thrust in both of your minds. So James, can you tell us and the listeners out there? What is this book about? It's a book about a mother and her son, and we don't really find out until the book develops a bit.

2:51 But She's kind of been on the run that whole life with her son, not really settling down anywhere. And she's obviously quite happy with that and they move in next door to a family and everything just gels, the completely clicks and there is happy as anything, of course things, then gradually fall apart and I better not tell you what happens at the end. It's quite a happy ending it reminded me of her first book which was called Whispers through a megaphone in that. You get a lot of insecurity within certain people, they're sort of, I don't know, sleeping rough or just being on their own or not quite sure what's going on or not having any money.

3:33 All these kind of things and then suddenly they find somebody who makes them feel a lot better. And it just so happens that that somebody has been looking for someone just like them as well. And it seems to be a kind of theme of Rachel's work to me is this wonderful coming together? Of to insecure people. It's heartwarming. It's a great book, really? I mean it does, there's nothing epic about it but I don't think everyone expects to get a book that they're going to feel epic about. I really enjoyed it.

4:04 Good, I agree with you. I love the way that her stories always populated by these characters who don't seem to quite neatly fit into mainstream Society. There are there always a little bit quirky, there was a little bit off and so e, you've had it. What did you think about it? Did you That. Yes this is my first. Rachel Elliot book, I've never come across her as a writer before I found her work comparable to Sarah. Wenman, I know, read the tin mining Gloucester book club before and just the way that she makes the ordinary, the everyday, the mundane extraordinary and the familial connections, not just blood family but also chosen family adopted family as you say groups of people that come together that are on the As of society, sort of learning to revalue and look at themselves in a different way through human connection.

4:57 So it was very heartwarming and it took me a little while to get into it. I would say, the character of Daniel, I wasn't quite sure what was going on with him at first and his thumb homelessness situation. But once we delve into the back story of his family and what happened with the meeting of these two neighbors back in the 80s and it became a lot more interested and I couldn't It down her writing. Also reminds me of Gail honey men I don't know if you remember with book club we read Eleanor Oliphant he's completely fine.

5:31 So it kind of reminds me a bit of that style of writing as well. Okay, let's go to the title of the book which is Flamingo and there are three, flamingos actually in the book are they symbolic of anything? Why is she called this book? Flamingo, is there a character that is the Do what do you think? James, you can't really be too sure. Right at the beginning that yeah, there are three flamingos on the front lawn of this house that they move and one assumes that that must be the flamingo reference, but as the book goes on, I don't know.

6:05 You begin to think Louis Three Flamingos and this is just called Flamingo. And I looked up flamingos on, Googled what is the significance of flamingos at this point? And it says, all kinds of positive stuff. You know, I can't remember, but just things like go. It didn't happy and things like that and I thought well, that's juice and then I suddenly remembered that Manfred. Mann hit from the 1960s pretty Flamingo and that exactly is what it means, really. I mean there's loads of things you can keep it's not pink.

6:35 It's someone who stands out from the crowd. I don't know. One of the weird things about this book is that Rachel never actually describes any character. You know, the first time usually in the book, where a character is introduced to you, you get this Option. How tall they are there careworn face. They're swept back hair or whatever. You know, but there's no description at all of anybody in this book. It's like she doesn't really care what people look like and then you think, well, I don't actually know who's good looking in this book.

7:07 If someone's a flamingo, there has to be a flamingo in the book. I would plump for the main character who's called Eve. But there's no evidence that she stands out from a crowd other than what she does. I mean, she seems to have No trouble getting together with people and so you wonder, maybe maybe she's good looking. She does lead this nomadic almost life and that maybe is as kind of a flamingo lifestyle, very solitary, she never stands on one leg, which of course, is another thing about and he's not pink.

7:39 The second character who's called Sherry the author always tells us she's wearing loads of makeup. So one could say well she's the flamingo I don't know I mean you could go on and on about it there it might have just been Chucked. In by the Publishers just to try and make people think like this. I would say that character Eve. What did you all think? It's a? No, I completely disagree. I think, yes, we don't have physical descriptions of the character, but given what happens or, you know, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that we've certainly feels attracted to Sherry and and vice versa.

8:16 There's a lot of collective nouns in these books because Eve is obsessed with them. One of the first things she says, when she meets Sherry is 0, the collective noun for Flamingo is a flamboyance of flamingos. And for me, it's just one of those really subtle signs. I think that number one, not only is Sherry somebody who's really out of the ordinary, who's an eccentric character, who likes to cause a stir and a drama and likes to be the center of attention in this very messy, kind of house. But also that she's somebody who's potentially interested in same-sex relationships to me, it's A big flag of this is something that can be seen as perhaps, quite campy, quite lgbt-friendly.

8:58 And so, for me, the flamingo really represents that possibility at a time when being gay was not criminalized, but still very frowned upon and you had to look for these designs and these symbols to see if you know, similarly people were interested in the same way that you were. And I think the flamingo's a big emblem of that just Anybody who's interested in same-sex relationships will go straight to that book and think I want Flamingo. Maybe, I mean that's that's it. That's, that's a good thought.

9:31 What about you, Christina, she wondered whether it was Eve and I think the fact that flamingos migrate and Eve tends to fly off quite a lot with Daniel in tow made me wonder whether you know that was a symbol of her flitting, you know, not staying in one place. For a very long time. But equally, I'm quite persuaded by it being Sherry as well, because she is quite a flamboyant character, I think in the book so I can see how it fits with her. And I guess, you know, this is another one of Rachel Elliott's, little little sort of things that she doesn't really answer.

10:09 I think there's several things in the book that as we read it that we may have liked to have known more about and you certainly come to the discussion about liked it, but it was certainly things that I think I wish I'd known. We're about this. All that was there. A favorite character that you had when you were reading the books? Yeah. My favorite character was Eve. I don't want to say too much because her character really develops throughout. But for me, even though Daniel and the book begins the narration and also you see Ray who is cheri's daughter when we pick up in the family in the modern day and for me, it was Eve's life that I wanted to know more about possibly because of this nomadic Darling.

10:51 Because she has so many different lives and she goes so many places does so many things with her life that for me, I wanted to know lots, more about what happens with her. That's kind of crossed over I think towards the end of the book definitely has a lot of unanswered questions there. I think about Eve and before he was the dad of Daniel we never find out. And so that that I would have liked to have known how that came about, you know, and she was very young when she got pregnant so you know He just, you know, a guy she met at school or whatever.

11:24 I just needed to know a bit more about, Daniel's dad. What about you James? Did you have a favorite character? Well, it's a, it's an interesting question, really? Because thinking about it. Wow. Well, as though he was answering the question, the funnily enough, none of the characters really have anything, really idiosyncratic about them in a way. None of them have any kind of sayings or I mean, okay, Eve is interested in the collective nouns. For Birds, we know that. I said it's hard. It's one of the one of the author's things really again she doesn't but her mother actually was one of the characters who was incredibly on the edge and she's just wheeled in just to prove to us readers.

12:06 That Eve was banished from home and she became a mo Nomad because of her parents being so unsympathetic to her. And so in some ways the mother is almost like a kind of Comedy villain which you would say, well, I quite like that, but again I have to agree with Zoe. There's only one real character who you can latch onto and that has to be Eve. He my favorite too. So the book jumps, doesn't it between the 80s and 2018 and drops in and out of their combined lives, and the narrative does pick up some Pace.

12:39 I think, as we go through the book, we start to understand what happened in that summer. I know it's hard not to give too many spoilers away, but we are you surprised. That what happened in that summer? Did you see it coming? Did you see the affair? We won't go into who it was with? Yes I did. I don't know for me reading sort of the blurb material and kind of reading between the lines in some of Daniels passages to me, it seemed obvious but I'm not sure what other people think. Actually, if you read the back of the book, it does give it away.

13:21 Anyone so take a five-year a little bit. Is it actually does? So, does the need of Yahweh? The fact that, you know, she also loves Eve. So, yeah, I mean yeah, we've done it now listeners, you know, it is out, there are alert. Yeah, I mean, did you see it coming down? It was, it was it? All right, I didn't see it coming. I didn't really feel that they've been that been any kind of suggestion that they were getting together in that way. Although I might I have completely missed it. There might have been loads of little trailers that we were given it did come as a surprise because the main thrust of the story is this kind of the way that as a group when they moved in next door to this family, how well they got on in comparison to how they weren't really having a great time when they weren't in cahoots with this family.

14:14 And so it was all about the kind of relationships indoors things that they did, how the father was getting on with the young boys. The, you know, the two girls were having a great time together. I didn't really feel that, you know, when, when they jumped into bed together, I didn't think who that I knew that was going to happen. Unlike Zoe, who's probably got more of a feel for it. I don't know. I know, I didn't see it coming. I was kind of uncomfortable with it. I don't think it changed anything much or spoilt.

14:41 Anything. I think the story is almost independent of the fact that it was a lesbian relationship myself. And it was clear listen it because obviously the thing that As me was not so much about the affair between even and it's Cherry. But it was actually the fact that Sherry suddenly arrives, pregnant with twins. You know, I think, well, you know that, obviously what's happening there, is that she's still in a sexual relationship with her husband Leslie. Also also conducting an affair with Eve and it's obviously that bit that breaks the to personally, even cherries relationship gets exploded by the fact that Sherry suddenly turns out to be pregnant.

15:21 Woods if understandably decides you know she can't cook at that and he long as she's got to run again she's got to go and yeah I didn't I did not see that coming but now she's I didn't either I must say you know I think it's really heavily insinuated that let's leave the husband. He's about 15 years older than Sherry and there seems to be a real generation gap but particularly as they aged Sherry very much wants to go walking out and about with her Fitbit and it seems as if Leslie's almost and another generation ahead again.

15:52 So they seem mismatched from the start and then like you say this pregnancy happened. So yeah, that was a real bombshell for me anyway, and especially that they were twins. I don't know why that was such a surprise, but they re all pretty kind people in this book, I felt choosing kindness all what they thought was being kind as a way of bonding creating safety within this kind of two families thing that they had going on. But the lies that they were telling each other or the It's that they were keeping from each other.

16:23 In order to I supposed to keep certain people safely than those families led to this huge fall out in the end, didn't it? So would it have been better? Do you think if they'd been honest about what was going on? Did you feel that Leslie? Knew that his wife was having an affair with Eve? I don't think he particularly probably knew, I mean he might have done them, but the author didn't really give us any clues that he was thinking that The big falling out I thought was, was to do with Eve herself, the the nomadic Eve who was probably looking for any excuse that you possibly could to leave that point because she probably stayed there longer than she'd ever stayed at any place before could have been anything that made her move on.

17:08 I mean, that the author doesn't actually give us any examples of the previous place, she lived and why they had to. Well, they say that somewhat wanted, the house is the reason she gave but no II, don't think it was the lesbian relationship myself. I just think that You know like like the character that we've said she is she was going to move on and this was just the way that she did on this case. I don't agree at all. I think she's really heartbroken. If you look at the age where Eve is in the novel, I was really surprised to find out that at the time of 80s, part of the novel.

17:39 When all of this action happens, sort of in the early 80s. She's in her early 20s, like you say, Christianity. Has Daniel really young, she's a teenage mom. So by the time, all of this stuff is happening and And we don't know much about Eve's backstory but presuming that she is lesbian and is only attracted to women. Sherry really is the first Big Love of her life. She's come from quite an abusive family almost pantomime you. So as you say James, but for me seeing Eve move about so much isn't because it's done out of Whimsy or carelessness.

18:15 But more the fact that she is absolutely terrified that her parents will discover her and take Daniel. Why it's as they threatened to do not, not quite sure how that all managed to work itself out. I think that b, a b incredible but I do see her someone who's been abused and is just terrified of being ever trapped in that scenario. Again, I've heard of Auntie fig. Haven't, we who possibly another lesbian contact? We don't actually know. We weren't, we weren't told too much, but I thought you might have been not so sure that this was the greatest relationship with her life but I, but I respect Your opinion, the impression I got by the end of the book was that you know she had that scene early on where she was putting a pin in the map as if it was something that she did every couple of months to decide where to move to next.

19:03 And we already had this pattern you know of her moving from place to place and it may have been Sherry's love of her life but I this was the whole point. I think Eve, is this character who's as cold as ice in fact and just goes and suddenly there she is. Some of the country with a with another lesbian wife and that's, that's really the point of the book. He begs the question, doesn't it as well, you know, until that relationship with Sherry, she may not have been totally aware of where her sobriety.

19:37 Hey, there's obviously she had had a relationship with a ladder. A man who, you know, who we don't know about it in order to have got pregnant. So, you know, it that may have been her realization that she was. A lesbian and, you know, and then she goes on to continue to have relationships with women. But again, we don't really know several filling in the blanks ourselves a little bit here. If you were Daniel, would you have been really angry at your mom for the cost to him of that move away at the end of that summer?

20:14 Well, I think was triggered by her not being able to cope with Sherry and the fact that show is going to Babies. And so it was all going to change to be angry. I think I would have been if I was Daniel I felt very sorry for him. You know, when he was in the car and they were driving away and he was so upset, he desperately wanted to stay because it was the first place. He I think he'd felt really happy. He was 6 years old. If it's difficult for us, all to cast our minds, back to when we were six but I don't think you do have any long-term disagreements with your parents.

20:45 I mean, you can be angry with them because they didn't buy you any sweets or because they won't give you a lift to school. Or something. But if they say, right, we've got to move everybody. You tend to just move, you know, and if you get annoyed about it, it's later in life, when you're 40 that, you tend to think I'm really angry about that. I now realize that those people were the people that I really loved. My parents used to move me around every year on a regular basis, and I don't remember ever having it out with them and saying what is going on.

21:14 Yeah, I'm going to have to move schools again. I just thought, oh, well moving schools again. That was it really? Yeah, I think you're right. He is this point in his life when we meet him in the book, now, he's 40, you know, looking back on that summer. And those people that he felt very bonded to. And that's why he wants to go back there and retrieve the feelings that he had of safety and comfort and being in a lovely family, you know, that's why you guys out there, when you Sporty's, would you agree?

21:44 Zoe, do you think that's that's why he heads back to Norfolk? Yeah, I am really interested by James and Take on it actually I think that he's almost maybe even lashing out much much more to the Future, So Daniel doesn't need to be homeless. This is the Crux of what irritated me at the beginning of the novel. He doesn't need to be homeless, but psychologically, he's clearly needing to cast himself out. Get rid of all of his possessions. He has a very extreme reaction to the end of his relationship with his current girlfriend.

22:20 And you Something told her to move on and, and out of the house, he's almost punishing himself by becoming homeless, which is something I wasn't quite sure how to interpret, or how to handle. And and now I think about it more. That there were in the discussion for this podcast. I'm wondering why. Okay, I can understand if Eve felt that she couldn't emotionally cope with seeing sharri and Leslie together and knowing that they're still very much a couple and they're still sexually active. And that they're growing their family but I don't understand why she couldn't have perhaps written to Leslie or to Ray.

22:57 You know, it's the 80s. It's not the 1800s. Why wouldn't some line of communication being kept open for Daniel to kind of help with the sadness? He clearly felt. And having to move away, I think this is the the character that Rachel Elliot. This is really the character that she quite successfully weaves, isn't it? And, and, it's weird the way that she doesn't tell us very much about Eve. A tool, really you read the book? You listen to the book and it's perfectly normal. Everything seems fine, you you're enjoying it but then suddenly when you think to yourself what does she look like or what?

23:31 Is she like, or what has she done in her past? You you suddenly find, you've got no evidence at all, and I don't know if that's part of the character that she really wanted to create if she was really saying to this, nobody knows who this person is, or whether she felt that by not telling us who she was that, it would help the Mystique of her or something, I think. I think the book is quite a lovely study, really of the stories that we tell ourselves to convince ourselves that our actions are right and that we're doing the right thing.

24:01 And that's that we see is what we know. And it's also I think it rather sweet story of redemption towards the end of the book. There's redemption in this for Daniel, there's maybe some Redemption coming at the end as well for Eve because she presents herself back right. At the end of the book in the UK, having come from And just understanding that some time, the huge things that we hope for but we're not ready to trifle. They just can wait for us to be ready to try them and I think with Daniel that is very much the case I think is almost like the Homeland homelessness part.

24:40 To me was symbolic of the fact that he feels within his mind that he is homeless. He has no secure place anymore and that's Sy, he goes back to Norfolk because that's the last memory, he has of a place where he felt really secure, and it was only for a very short period of time and he's trying to go back there. He's trying to recreate the feeling that he had when he was a child. And I guess I can understand that. I can I can you know, I can get on board with some of that. I also agree with you James and Andy with you Zoe that he didn't need to make himself homeless.

25:18 He did have some money. I was able to go and buy food, he was able to buy a train ticket to get to Norfolk and he was only homeless for about a week. I think, wasn't it something like that? The book wet slept on benches and someone came along and peed on him and you feel that the homelessness part of the book needed to be in there or could it equally have been fine without I think, absolutely it is absolutely. It didn't need to be in there ought to that level of extreme something that I found. Found interesting was as preparing for the podcast is.

25:54 I didn't realize that Rachel Elliott has also worked as a psychotherapist and I wondered if she was using this very elaborate metaphor of homelessness. Exactly. As you described Christina to talk. Show. How put out, he feels, how insecure, how out of the psyche and out of comfort. He feels. But yeah, that's one of the things that I disliked about the book. Definitely, she wanted to create this, the whole idea of this book when she sat down and thought the idea up one night. Was that they've got to come back to these people that they had these Halcyon Days with.

26:26 And so she has to create a kind of need to come back. You know, if he's happily living with a girlfriend then he's not going to just walk out of the house one night and go back to the people that you used to live next to you when you were six. So she's got to think of some device hasn't. She's got to build up this this want of getting back. So I think maybe making him Homeless was a device to show and I mean he splits over this girlfriend and he's completely and despairs, you know, he's got no idea.

26:56 He's obviously a guy who doesn't know how to cook meals and so he just goes on the road like a like a homeless guy. We can understand why he came back to stay with these people who used to live next door to when he was 6 and the whole thing ones in exactly the way the author wanted to. But she's very good at this homeless thing. This is what we were saying earlier on. She's wonderfully, describing somebody who's there? Send with no money and nobody loves them and they've got nothing and you know, she'll describe some little conversation with a bus driver, getting onto a bus or whatever.

27:29 And you really do feel it, you feel desperate for this guy at that point and mainly through her good writing, it wasn't really about homelessness. There was interesting, I don't think so. Not really, I mean going towards the ending of the book when you got there. Did you feel satisfied was there happy ever after feeling for you or was that left kind of unresolved Wild? Since we're talking about it, I'm going to say no this is so I really, as I said, felt very engrossed in the book. I couldn't put it down.

27:57 I needed to know what happened to all of these characters. And by the time I got to the end, I had one massive question which is what on Earth happened to Leslie just as fearlessly? He appears not to know that his wife had at least one Affair throughout their marriage and I was really hoping that that would come to light and it never Did and that was very unsatisfying, really good point. There were, there were other characters. Who did you didn't really find out much about as well? There were these two twins, weren't there is a comical, you know, caricature, these rough and Butch twins that set people on fire and ruin parties.

28:40 And then another daughter in the family. We know nothing about falling and I mean, I actually felt and I didn't this is to be completely wrong. Long, the actually Leslie did sort of know what what Sherry was like and did know that she was likely to go off and have affairs. And I felt that he tolerated it because he knew there was quite a big age gap between them and I think it wasn't probably the first time for Sherry that. Yeah. That makes sense. I think he just let things go. I think he thought.

29:13 Yeah. Well there's this 15 year age Gap. Maybe, you know, I'm not going to be up to keeping up with Sherry because clearly he was In lots of ways and he just let it go, you know, and probably, you know, he was fine about it. Yeah. The whole household was welcoming and apparently they were still welcoming 40 years later. It will 35 years later which was kind of weird that they hadn't found some other family. Next door, you would have thought with their kind of welcome the whoever moved in next door.

29:42 Next would have been there with them sitting in the bath sitting in their bed going out shopping with them had. No, they were just there waiting for the people. Who've been there 35 years before but they were welcoming and somebody like that. Exactly. As you say Christina, someone like that would probably not want to make a big point to the fact that his wife might have slept with another woman. Kimani I just be sort of one of these easygoing fairly tolerant sort of guys and the living room. Instead just take the voice wig.

30:15 Yes. Yeah dude that's what he loved. Isn't it didn't and Daniel loved him but I do think that at the end of the book it seems to be pointing to me in the direction. The Daniel and Ray were getting together. I don't know whether you yeah that too and that he was probably going to marry her in. Actually. There is a bit in the book which kind of signposts that it's on page. 252 for anybody out there, he's got a book in front of them. Be he's dressed in a suit and it talks about the suited his wedding, the suta a really sad occasion you say.

30:50 And actually that to me was a sign post to, he's going to marry Ray, you know, at the end of the book and although, you know, wasn't site, it wasn't explicit. But I think that's what's going to happen. And the fact that you returned, I think she was going to make her peace with Daniel again because clearly they'd fallen out and they don't haven't been speaking to each other. And so, I think things were going to be resolved. But that was quite nice. Would you recommend this book for book club read?

31:20 Absolutely. I didn't have any negative thoughts about it at all, like I said, it's not an absolute epic and I read it about three weeks ago and I'm beginning to struggle to remember everything that I read. Now already all the same. I really enjoyed it. You know as Zoe said it was a bit slow at the beginning you know usually a book slow at the beginning you've got to kind of wait to get the feeling the atmosphere and the characters before you before you kind of leap off the precipice and you're just sailing with whatever.

31:50 Is going on, but it certainly did that, you know, I certainly spent whole periods, just not even noticing the time and thinking about the way she was writing and and the lovely atmosphere, there was a beautiful few pages written about Christmas in 1984 and how the family all got together at Christmas. Again, the whole scene where Daniel has split up with his girlfriend and he's making his way like as a homeless down and out. That, that whole thing goes really well when he reaches there and finds them all welcome.

32:20 That's a lovely moment as well and when he gets together with Ray, I mean there was some great stuff in there and anyone who likes to kind of feel good book that would be a fool not to give this a try. I would definitely recommend it to a book club just as something. Maybe a bit of a palate cleanser because it is light. It is fun. There are some darker themes, you know, as we've discussed in the podcast potentially parental abuse, homelessness depression but it's all dealt with in a way. That you feel rejuvenated after reading it.

32:53 You feel that there is hope for these characters and in that way, it's a nice almost little holiday. I'd recommend it, as a holiday, read for sure. And you learn about all the collective nouns of birds as well. Received from Tyson, what does anyone remember what the collective noun for Ravens is unkindness? I can hardly believe I'm sure the Ravens wouldn't agree. But on that note thank you guys for coming along and join. In the podcast again tonight and thank you out there. You listeners for listening in.

33:25 Again, we will be back in about another months time or with yet another podcast. I can't tell you what it's going to be about yet, but we will be here. So in the meantime, keep well and keep reading. Bye for now.

33:44 Thank you for listening to Gloucester book clubs podcasts. You can find us on Spotify. Anchor, FM, Google and apple podcasts. And many more we look forward to. Having you join us again soon.